Apparently it’s Department of Agriculture Day here at the shebeen. Food for Progress helps poor people overseas so, naturally, that can’t be part of the department’s mission. There is also a program called Farm to School, which helps poor people in this country grow and consume healthy food so, naturally, that’s no job for a Department of Agriculture. Silly people. From the Mississippi Free Press:
“We get to show the students that the flower flowers first and that’s how the fruit is made,” [Midtown Partners Urban Farm Consultant Matt] Casteel told the Mississippi Free Press on April 24. “That’s the cool thing, the visual hands-on piece to this. One of the cool things the students learn is how important it is that we consume our veggies relatively soon after the harvest because they can lose up to 40% of their nutrients within four to seven days, depending on what crop it is.”
Midtown Partner’s Farm to Community initiative has served nearly 400 underserved elementary and middle school students and more than 2,000 community residents since its start. They’ve distributed hundreds of pounds of radishes and leafy greens from the winter harvest, going door-to-door doing community food distributions.
This is the kind of “help folks help themselves” initiatives that used to be all the rage in federal spending. Politicians used to come to places like this and help pick radishes while cameras whirred and hummed in the background. Presidents used to send them official-sounding proclamations, calling them one of “a thousand points of light” or some such. (Thanks, Poppy!) Hell, Lyndon Johnson would have been there eating produce picked straight from the ground. I almost don’t remember that country any more.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture notified state agencies in April that it was canceling the Patrick Leahy Farm to School grant, which funded programs like Midtown Partners’ Farm to Community Initiative. The grant opportunity would have provided $10 million for child nutrition programs to introduce students to locally-sourced foods for fiscal year 2025.
The annual competitive federal grant, which began in 2013, has awarded $100 million for 1,275 projects. It assisted grantees in planning, developing, and implementing programs. Grantees used the funds in prior years for a variety of initiatives, including school gardens. The grant has provided 13 Mississippi grantees with more than $1 million in funds.
“This loss creates uncertainty around funding and future Farm to School programs,” Mary Jo Wilson, the marketing and outreach lead for the Mississippi Farm to School Network, told the Mississippi Free Press on April 23. “It also shows how our current legislature overlooks the value of local food and nutritious school meals for children and also threatens vital progress towards improving children’s health, food security and improving the lives of local farmers.” Wilson said canceling the grant will mean fewer resources for local food purchasing. It will also mean that farm-to-school programs that were looking forward to receiving the funding will have to scale back on school garden programs, nutrition education activities, and Farm to School initiatives, Wilson said.
Maybe some twerp in cargo shorts and a MAGA hat can tell me whether school kids growing their own radishes in Mississippi counts as waste, fraud, or abuse. I’m confused on that one.
